He said it would be wrong to pretend there was any possibility of a compromise. Moving to Perth was a necessary stepping stone in his career. It had to happen.
I said, “What about my career?” I was still working for the National Parks and Wildlife. I will admit I had thought it was probably time to do something different, especially as Baashir was leaving soon to go back on his travels, but I’d been distracted by getting married. It’s a distracting thing to do.
He said, “Come on now, Cherry. You’re not interested in a career. You could stay at that desk forever, happily adding and subtracting.”
“Adding and subtracting?”
“All right, and multiplying and dividing.” He grinned hopefully, as if I would find this witty, which I did not.
He said, “Anyway, we’re going to start trying for a baby soon.”
“Are we?” I said. I didn’t remember discussing this either. Was it also a fait accompli? I guessed it was; certainly our mothers considered it one, and I longed to make them both happy.
“I don’t want to move to Perth,” I said. “I really don’t.”
I’m sure you know what happened. When a man’s decision has momentum, it can rarely be stopped.
We moved to Perth.
Chapter 90
It is midmorning on a Wednesday and Allegra and Jonny are walking the coastal trail between Dover Heights and Watsons Bay. It’s cool and beautiful. There aren’t many people about, so it feels like this sun-shimmered expanse of ocean and these majestic sandstone cliffs are laid out just for them.
Allegra breathes deeply and notices a tiny muscle in her forehead has released, although she hadn’t, up until now, been aware of its existence. Her face feels as smooth and carefree as a child’s. Her back still feels good. No pain. She had always taken “absence of pain” as a right, not a privilege. It feels like a privilege now.
She posts a photo of the horizon and tries to think of a caption that isn’t cheesy or pretentious or too obviously posted to make friends in the corporate world feel miserable about their career choices. Although isn’t that the actual point of social media? To make everyone feel bad?
She posts it without a caption. Lets the photo speak for itself.
“Australia’s first lighthouse,” gestures Jonny as they walk past Macquarie Lighthouse.
He only moved to Sydney from Perth a couple of years ago, so he tends to carefully plan and research each “date,” if that’s what these outings are; Allegra is trying not to think about it too much.
She asks, “Will there be a worksheet for me to fill out later on?”
He bumps his shoulder against hers and she feels a moment of happiness so pure it’s painful.
They walk on in silence and eventually stop at a lookout, where they lean their elbows on the wooden barrier and follow the progress of a jet on the horizon.
“Do you want to fly international one day?” asks Allegra.
They rarely discuss work because of her paranoia about the idea of their “relationship” going public.
“I do,” says Jonny. “You?”
“That’s always been the plan,” says Allegra.
“So how did you get into the biz?” asks Jonny.
She lowers her sunglasses and looks at him over the top with raised eyebrows. “Did you just say ‘the biz’? How did I get into the biz? The flying biz?”
He winces. “I know, I know. Give me a break, Allegra. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been body-snatched when I’m talking to you. I get nervous.”
“You get nervous?” She can’t believe he said that. “No, you do not.”
“Sure I do. Sometimes. Because I like you so much.”
There’s that vulnerability again. Which every woman is meant to want in a man. The obvious thing to say would be “Well, I like you too, Jonny, you don’t need to be nervous,” but it feels pathetic.
She could tell him she feels nervous too. It’s so awkward to be with him like this, outdoors in the sunlight, sober and dressed and talking about normal things. It’s embarrassing! Nerdy. Also, very scary. Like peeling off a layer of skin. The only way she feels comfortable telling him she likes him is with her body, in bed, and surely she is making that very clear.
There is a flicker of a feeling she needs to investigate later. It’s something to do with how he said, Give me a break, Allegra. Almost pleadingly. Is she protecting herself so effectively she’s occasionally cruel? When this inevitably ends will he describe her to his next girlfriend as “a little toxic”? Imagine if she’s the toxic ex? If she gets the villain edit?
She looks back out to sea and says, “Well, I’ve always had a kind of freakish love of flying. Mum thinks I was a bird in a previous life.”
She hopes he doesn’t now ask a respectful, earnest question about her cultural beliefs regarding reincarnation as if her mother is serious, although of course her mother is serious.
But he just smiles and says, “I think I was too.”
Which is exactly the right thing to say, so she continues, “Mum took me on a domestic flight when I was two and she says when we took off I went crazy, clapping and shrieking, and everyone was laughing at me.”
“That is very cute,” says Jonny. He caresses the back of her neck beneath her ponytail with his fingers and she just about manages to keep the tremor of desire out of her voice as she continues.
“And then one day, I think I was about nine, we were on a flight to India and there was this flight attendant, who was so…elegant, she just seemed to glide down the aisle of the plane, and I had this sudden revelation: Wait, this is her job! She’s literally getting paid to fly! I thought it was like a kind of glitch in the system—why wouldn’t everyone in the world want that job?”
“So I was this close to being an accountant.” Jonny holds up his thumb and index finger. “Same as my dad. I was okay at math and commerce, those kinds of subjects, so it just seemed, like, of course I’ll be an accountant like Dad. I was fine with it. Even kind of looking forward to it.”
“What happened?”
